Sea Ice News #23, plus a bonus NOAA sea ice blunder

Arctic Sea Ice has grown:
http://notrickszone.com/2010/09/19/arctic-sea-ice-has-grown-since-september-1/

Excellent post!

Over the past two years I have learned that ice on the Arctic Ocean is greatest in about March and least in about September. The minimum seems to vary a bit more than the maximum. Winds, ocean currents, and temperature vary from year to year and so does the ice. It may take several years for a major loss to be replaced but a full basin can be rapidly depleted when winds and ocean currents break up the ice and flush it from the Arctic Ocean. The growth and decline of ice appears to have been happening much like this for a few hundred years and while the maximum ice amount is constrained by the size of the ocean the minimum can be assumed to be zero, however, unlikely that is. The North Pole being ice free is symbolic but of little interest otherwise as winds can force ice from the center of the Ocean. There is nothing in the historical record nor in current measurements to suggest the Arctic Ocean will actually reach zero ice or close to it, nor for how many days or weeks. There is nothing to suggest that it would not start to refreeze. There is no information to suggest a global catastrophe if it were mostly or completely ice free for a few days or weeks. A new glaciation would remove water from the oceans and store it on land in solid form. The Arctic Ocean level would drop. If there are studies about what this would mean for the Arctic region – I have not seen them.

Bill Illis says:
September 19, 2010 at 7:14 pm
How do we know it is 22% below average.
Well, we don’t know because nobody knows what the sea ice extent average is for September 15th from 1979 to 2009.
==================================
Excellent point!
And nobody DEFINITELY knows what the sea ice extent average is for September 15th from….1879 through 1978.
Or from, lets say, randomly, 1970 – 1978.
Or from 2007 BC through 2007 AD LOL.
How in the hell do they KNOW what “22% below average” really means?
The answer is they don’t.
But that doesn’t stop the primitive “fight or flight” mechanism…mostly “flight” when it comes to the CAGW crowd…from wriggling its way into
scientific argument and into NOAA press releases.
The sky is falling. The sky is falling. The ice is melting.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

JAMSTEC video excellent. Thanks Anthony.

Pretty much says the same as this …
http://www.aquatic.uoguelph.ca/oceans/ArticOceanWeb/Currents/maincur.htm
REPLY: Thanks for that! Note that the currents in this image near far northern Canada bordering the Arctic Sea

…are reverse to the displacement direction shown in the PIPS map. That’s the distinction.
The way the displacement vectors are going now, they are aiding the injection of ice into the transpolar drift, which pushes the ice southward to melt in warmer latitudes.
– Anthony

Sorry, that should say minor GAIN of 8906.

Measuring since 1979, are they? What are they confirming?
Elections are near here in the USA. Bloodless takeover there could be.
Climate gate hearings in the summer we may see.
Time to get the facts straight.

Uh, I am wondering though why the difference between PIPS and Cryosphere Today images, where PIPS has thick ice on the north side of Spitsbergen and C.T. has no ice?
REPLY: one is a model forecast output (PIPS), the other is a satellite sensor rendered image. I would not expect them to match perfectly. – Anthony

blundering along in the MSM:
20 Sept: Australian from UK Times: Tony Halpin: Russia jostles for pole position as Arctic melts
IT is a question that could provoke a new Cold War as global warming opens up the possibility of exploiting vast new energy reserves: Who owns the Arctic?
Vladimir Putin opens an international conference on the future of the Arctic on Wednesday, the latest sign of the Kremlin’s determination to establish itself as the dominant northern power…
But with glaciers and sea ice melting in the Arctic at twice the rate of other parts of the world, the diplomatic temperature is rising over the future of this 21st-century Klondike…
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast that Arctic sea ice could disappear completely by 2030 in the summer months….
Moscow also argues that it is willing to seek negotiated compromise, pointing to last week’s agreement with Norway that ended a 40-year border dispute in the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/russia-jostles-for-pole-position-as-arctic-melts/story-e6frg6so-1225926701860

Let’s face the facts made clear by the animated video:
The Arctic basin is one huge ice machine that is flushed on a regular basis by wind and currents. Ice melt within the basin is seasonal and not significant.

Pamela Gray says:
September 19, 2010 at 8:56 pm
The Earth is not aware what day it is. It is absolutely silly to compare this day with last year on the same day.
========================
I get what you are saying in principle.
But, taking issue here, the Earth very well might “know” when it has made a complete revolution around the Sun.
So making annual comparisons is not completely meaningless.
Chris

First, the AMSER-E sounder animation is awesome.
Second, in the extent blink-comparison, the notation in the lower left corner changes from “Data from the NOAA-19 and DMSP satellites” (9/15/2010) to “Data from the SSMI satellite sensor” (9/18/2010).
Is there significance to that notational change? Did the ice extent in the image change because they changed data sets? Illumination welcome.
REPLY: Data set is likely the same, the SSMI is on the DMSP sat. – Anthony

The video animation looks much better via youtube:

I’ll restate Pamela’s point with this example. Wash. & Oregon get frequent air masses off of the Pacific. The source (SW, W, NW) direction helps determine the temperature while the duration may be a day to a few days.
A series of cloudy days such as we have just had moderates the temperature. The local airport hit 61F early last evening and stayed there (+/-2) until 10:30 A.M. today. The current thought is that the clouds will be mostly gone by Monday evening and the night’s low will be about 37F. At higher elevations (mine is 2,240 feet) with clear sky our temps will drop rapidly. A comparison with the same date in any other year is of little use, which, I suppose is why an average is used.
Note Pamela’s wording:
“this day with last year on the same day”
Translate this to Arctic Ocean ice. Let’s say that last year a major wind started to move ice out on Sept. 19th while last year a similar wind started a week earlier, lasted a week and stopped. It might be best to compare the 26th of 2010 with the 18th of 2009 – the day after a very similar wind and flushing of ice out. This is very cumbersome and won’t happen. This doesn’t change the fact that the day-to-day comparison is “silly.”

John F. Hultquist says:
September 19, 2010 at 10:02 pm
I’ll restate Pamela’s point with this example.
========================
You and Pamela have great points. My point is that there is a reason the 365-day year exists.
But, that aside, I get what you are saying and certainly think the fact that the “average” rules the roost…is not representative of reality.
Hence: CAGW conjecture. Their house of cards is based upon averages.
R Gates shrieking chicken little style that the “CO2 levels have increased 40% since the 1700s” being a good example that comes to mind.
Weather [and climate] represent many extremes and those extremes and peaks and crevasses are just what HAPPENS.
And if we are smart…we will learn to adapt and deal with it.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

So extent is meaningless unless it carries caveats on wind disruption!
Here are figures for the area under the annual extent curve. The figure for 2010 is the area for the 12 months preceeding Sept 2010.
Year_____(f)V as % of 03__Rank__Giss global T
2003_________100 _______1______14.55
2004_________97.9_______2______14.48
2005_________94.8_______5______14.62
2006_________93.0_______7______14.54
2007_________91.2_______8______14.57
2008_________96.6_______3______14.44
2009_________95.8_______4______14.57
2010_________(94.7)_____(6)______?
From this you get an idea of how much ice for each year. I put in annual global T from GISS for interest. 04 & 06 do not correlate but others do (warmer year less ice). T for 2010 is still awaited. Were 04 & 06 affected by wind? Extent, however you measure it does not include thickness. Volume is what we really need. Volume is the mercury in the hemisphere thermometer.

When I’m tempted to chastise myself for having opinions on science, I reflect on the fact that many serious scientists seriously believe that a thirty year record of Arctic ice – covering a period of mostly warm PDO – could have global implications. When there are abundant reasons to believe that similar conditions prevailed as recently as the 1920’s, and that ice increased greatly after that well-reported big melt, I become downright smug.
AGW science is a bit like the priestly science of ancient times. The pharaoh rewarded those who scientifically predicted or even aided the the Nile’s flooding. As for the odd bean-eating fellah who thought the Nile just flooded or dropped because stuff changes…he got no MSM time, and was totally out of the academic tenure loop. If the likes of Watts and McIntyre opened their yaps, they’d be cutting bullrushes for the rest of their days.

Then defying even the experts, it started back down again.
According to Andy Revkin: “Some other sea ice scientists (Jennifer Francis at Rutgers and Ignatius Rigor at the University of Washington) told me they are not ready to call it a season, noting that atmospheric pressure and some other conditions over the basin could lead to further shrinkage of ice extent in the next week or so.”
The good news is that Arctic Ice extent has not gone below the 2008 value yet,
Why is this good news? You predicted a recovery that was 1 million square km higher than current extent.
With six weeks of cloudiness, low temperatures and the Beaufort Gyre reversing during the most important period of the melting season – during July and the first half of August, when melting rates are highest – you had everything you could wish for as a recovery-predicter, BUT STILL 2010’s extent is in a virtual tie with that of 2008. Realize that if the Arctic sea ice had experienced 2007 weather conditions, we’d be looking at an extent way below 4 million square km.
It suggests that like in 2007, wind is a more significant factor in sea ice depletion than from melting, especially this past week where the DMI temperature drop shows well below freezing point of sea ice temperature at 80°N and above.
You better start taking sea surface temperatures into consideration. This is the number 1 factor in ‘sea ice depletion’.
It sure looks like thickness has increased, doesn’t it?
No, it doesn’t. That’s a sea ice concentration map. All the holes in the central ice pack (which deserve a What’s Up With That article of their own, as we have witnessed something highly unusual this year) are freezing up. The ice is not 1 meter thick instantly. At the fringes there is still melt going on under the ice. Because of? You guessed right, anomalously high SSTs.
The thickness is much greater today, and we could even say the volume is likely more.
As no one can know this for sure until CryoSat-2 data starts coming in, there’s only one conclusion we can draw from this statement: wishful thinking. Not a reliable source if we want to know something about Arctic sea ice.
There is no recovery (despite ideal conditions for it this melting season) and the ice is looking not so good. Trying to hide this fact and spin it the other way round, is intellectually dishonest.

Ok, the ice pack looks more “solid” now as the leads and melt ponds have re-frozen. This is simply an indicator that the freeze season is beginning, and is typical at this time (around September 15-20, give or take). Within a few days we should see margins of new ice forming all around the current ice edge.

Günther Kirschbaum says:
September 20, 2010 at 1:15 am
There is no recovery (despite ideal conditions for it this melting season) and the ice is looking not so good.
There never was an emergency 911 Ice Accident.
That is intellectually dishonest, and the warmist camp made that call.
It’s really cold, and sea ice is forming faster than the wind can push it out up there, as we speak.
If that wasn’t enough, the Arctic SST’s are falling below freezing in an ever-expanding area, well out in front of the new ice areas.
Nice try, but you would do better if you paid attention to the details.

The animation is fascinating. I think you could show that to a lot of laypeople and it dispels the image that the ice is just this giant mass of stuff that sits there eternally, unmoved, until recently disturbed by CO2.
Nature is imagined to be fixed, in balance, undisturbed, but it is actually a continuous complex living movement. That animation says it all.

I don’t see how both of the above statements can be true, yet I’ve seen multiple people saying one or both of them. Either this year was NOT ideal for recovery because of the high SSTs (as R. Gates kept saying), or SSTs are not the #1 force in melt.
Scott, you are right, I am contradicting myself.
Barring the SSTs (which were higher than in 2008 and 2009, but not higher than in 2007), the absence of the Arctic Dipole Anomaly in July and the first half of August – bringing cloudiness, low temperatures and the stalling of the Beaufort Gyre and Transpolar Drift Stream -> spreading the ice out – is the main reason that 2010 is in a virtual tie for second place with 2008 ONLY.
During July 2007 had an average daily melt of almost 40K higher than 2010, and 10K higher during the first 2 weeks of August. Had the stalling started only 2 weeks later, we’d be looking at a new record minimum extent right now.
So I still venture to say that the most important period of the melting season was very much in favour of people who maintained there would be a recovery. Another factor in their favour was the shield of multi-year ice in the Western Arctic that got pushed there during the winter with its extremely negative AO, and took a long time to melt out (some of it is still left).
But despite this 2010 is virtually tied with 2008, both Passages are open (the Russian and Norwegian crews are very close to exiting the NWP and thus circumnavigating the Arctic for the first time in human history), and we have seen some very weird behaviour in the central ice pack, with big holes all the way to the North Pole. These holes have lasted all the way till the end of the melting season, and instead of being closed by compaction they were frozen over in the last week or so. I would even be so bold to say minimum extent has been artificially high this year.
The only remaining question now is: how about thickness/volume? Which model is more accurate, PIOMAS or PIPS? CryoSat-2 will hopefully tell us.
I’ll conclude with one of R. Gates’ remarks (very clearly the person here with the broadest knowledge about and insight into the behaviour of the Arctic sea ice and its unmistakable downward trend): It will be interesting to see what happens in the next El Niño year, especially with a sun that is moving towards sunspot maximum. With an Arctic Dipole Anomaly that doesn’t disappear during July, chances of a new record minimum extent are very high. And if the ice isn’t as thick as some people are fervently hoping, an ice-free Arctic (ie below 1 million square km extent) can’t be ruled out either.
And then hopefully we can start discussing potential consequences, instead of wasting energy in denying the obvious.

Here in Thailand a doctor warned us all that polar bears will be extinct in less than ten years and all glaciers will melt.
The article is here:
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/2010/09/18/national/Bangkok-may-be-uninhabitable-%7Cin-seven-years-30138225.html
and the letter I had published is here:
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/2010/09/21/opinion/Stop-this-climate-change-scare-mongering-30138346.html

I think that the wind & “arctic flush” factor increases greatly with thin ice. Maybe if the ice was thicker it would get jammed up slowing both the compaction & flushing.
SST is very important in my book also..how could it not be?
A big factor in SST is the surrounding air so Checking the Buoy air temps & a # of coastal landbased weather stations have given me a good Idea on how the Ice is doing..the wind factor has only tricked me a couple of times but compaction doesn’t remove ice it just moves it..Volume ice in the bank..we are going to see a good rebound.

Does anyone know if Cryostat2 is making routine measurements, so that by this time next year, we will have an accurate comparison over twelve months?

Interesting article in the National Post.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/09/20/lorne-gunter-good-news-on-polar-ice-melt-you-may-have-missed/
NASA scientists now claim ice melting rates are half of what was previously claimed.
What? NASA?

Lorne Gunter in The National Post
“Moreover, there are disputes over just how much ice is up there now and whether or not the alarmists are measuring it accurately.”
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/09/20/lorne-gunter-good-news-on-polar-ice-melt-you-may-have-missed/

samspade10,
The good doctor seems to be following Al Gore’s story boards and likely expects to be rewarded by NASA. Or, it could be he just isn’t very bright. Your letter of response was right on.

The minimum – so far – this autumn is 4.81 million sq km. OK, so that is better than 2008 (at 4.7m) but the average pre-2007 was 5.7 million.
All the indications are that the ice continues to thin. Remember that thinning ice was one of the keys to the significant collapse in 2007 (caused by the ususual synoptics, but which on their own would not have had the same effect).
Your prediction of 5.75m for 2011 sounds impressive until you realise that it would do no more than put us back to levels earlier this century. The normal minima in the last two decades of the 20th century were over 7.0 million.
Given the accelerating rate of loss each melt season, for your 5.75m to be achieved we will need either an exceptional level of ice formation this winter or an extraordinarily low rate of melt next summer. I doubt you will see either.

Günther Kirschbaum says:
September 20, 2010 at 4:43 am
It will be interesting to see what happens in the next El Niño year, especially with a sun that is moving towards sunspot maximum.
Are you and R Gates saying that, every 11 years when there is a sunspot maximum, global temperatures increase significantly and Arctic ice extent dips noticeably? Is this seen in the temperature and Arctic ice records? Will the present weak solar cycle with a lower maximum be no exception? I see no evidence or logic behind this expectation – only wishful thinking.

What is it, phlogiston? Getting nervous already? :-p

Way to be a stalker Smokey. Can’t handle the heat?

Kirschbaum writes:
“Had the stalling started only 2 weeks later, we’d be looking at a new record minimum extent right now.”
Are we in a competition for drama queen? “Record minimum extent” translates as 1 maybe 2 clicks below where it is now. Could we get back to the language of science, please?

Günther Kirschbaum says: September 20, 2010 at 4:43 am
Are you standing in for R Gates?

Günther Kirschbaum says: September 20, 2010 at 4:43 am
And if the ice isn’t as thick as some people are fervently hoping, an ice-free Arctic (ie below 1 million square km extent) can’t be ruled out either. And then hopefully we can start discussing potential consequences, instead of wasting energy in denying the obvious.
Are you fervently hoping an ‘ice-free’ Arctic will ‘prove’ AGW?

Are you standing in for R Gates?
If only I could! R. Gates is a saint, and I hope from now on you will all bring some more attention and respect to the table when he’s talking.
Are you fervently hoping an ‘ice-free’ Arctic will ‘prove’ AGW?
If that stops the AGW-is-a-hoax-disinformation, so we can finally all together start discussing what we can do to start transitioning to a healthier and more sustainable society, yes, I do. I also fervently hope no one here has a problem a priori with a more sustainable society.
No – bring it on!
OK, I’ll bring it on. 🙂
Remember the PIOMAS vs PIPS controversy that was raised by ex-guest author Steven Goddard some time back? As it turns out the Sea Ice Outlook June prediction made by Jinlun Zhang – from the Polar Science Center of the University of Washington – that was based on the PIOMAS model turned out to be pretty accurate.
Zhang/PIOMAS: 4.7 million square km, later revised to 4.8 million square km.
Goddard/PIPS: 5.5 million square km (Goddard actually agreed with Anthony Watts that minimum extent would recover to 5.75 million square km, but never mind), later revised to 5.1 million square km.
Well, the volume graph from the PIOMAS model has just been updated:
It’s 3500 km3 below the already rapidly decreasing trend line. Hopefully CryoSat-2 will prove the model wrong, or I don’t think we won’t be seeing any meaningful recovery in the Arctic for a while to come. Just like this year, but then worse.

Joe Bastardi: Monday Morning Sea Ice Report Sep 20, 2010; 10:31 AM EDT.

Gunther: thanx for Piomas update = 4000 cubic km
2009 was 5800 …. BUT my figures indicate the “rebound” La Nina in 2007 added 1200 & this VERY powerful rebound aought to add near DOUBLE that.
… So despite forecasting a Low extent this year, I expect a BIG Gain … just not enough to put us out of the every-60-year- “Thin Ice Period”. ICESAT’s 6000 km3 reading put 2007’s drop at over 5000 km3 from the previous years’ November Ice. Therefore it is a Race, similar to after the COOLING began in 1947 but we got periodic drops = PIOMAS’s minimum XX Century Ice in 1954, until:
>> One of 2 events Ends the “thin Ice Period”:
(1) an El Nino like 2007’s melts over 5000 km3 & it is All Gone.
… (not a Modoki = late Clouds, not too strong, either = too many)
(2) an El Nino + Volcano (Hot Moist Air, Cooled by Sulfur = Snow)
– – Once the Ice is thick enoough, the Cooling pattern can take over, without the Ice melt = dark-ocean = Sun is absorbed, pattern (called Ice-albedo feedback)
Obviously I prefer #2, since I forecast 99% U.S. Deaths from #1 !
… IF several Dominos fell (I gave it 15%) including IF the Clouds stayed away – – which they did not – – in fact stayed for 82 days — over double 2007’s Low-melt period, apparently because the El Nino was 1.8/1.1 times as strong & lasted 33% longer, thus making 2.4/1.1 times the clouds – – & pushing the Cloudy Period Start almost into July – – the worst possible time — or maybe the best (I prefer being ALIVE to being RIGHT). Since a Normal Pattern just resumed Next time I have the Rule to Forecast the Cloud pattern
…. so IF I tell you to run: move to Brazil or die !
(maybe: Abrupt Climate Changes that “should” happen are still 50-50 according to the Abrupt Climate Change Task Force which, after all, was formed to dismiss the possibility and was not happy to find they were. Here: basically if the Arctic has NO ICE + SUN, it will become hotter than further South & the Currents reverse = Worse than that Disaster Movie).
Anthony Watts: Walt Meir was NOT silent – – you need to get on the Sea Ice Outlook Mailing List.
Walt Mieir was Very upset about the METOP satellite feed NOAA used for the PICTURE ABOVE. The whole thing is “experimental”, according to NOAA – – and that is the KINDEST word he had to say about it. To get an analogy: Pips has a display of the “raw” Concentration DATA that they wildly enhance the contrast on.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/archive/retrievepic.html?filetype=Concentration&year=2010&month=9&day=19
“We’ve been in touch with them about this during the past week. Where they show no ice there is some reduced concentrations, but it is still at least 50% in the PM fields” – – the METOP Map cutoff is 25%. To put it charitably, Walt says they have the wrong contrast setting.
You may have seen my Compendiums of 13-to-15 Indexes.
Apparently, one reason Climate Scientists print few DATA lists is they fear the inevitable disaggreements between Numbers will excite Belief they are all LIARS. Actually he seemed surprised & pleased my Conclusion was that they all had a definitive Order – – like runners in their Lanes — and they STAYED in the Lanes (everyone has their own set of rules for interpretting the Satellite Data which is from measuring radiation coming UP at it, presumably reflected but not always – – thus the rules) … You are wrong to say, for instance, that PIPS is a model and others are not – – they all are, though PIPS Thickness is a 2-step process & so the problems are “squared” – – concentration maps give a percent of Ice, say, 50% ice in September, and then Pips applies a FIXED thickness as per the rulebook of 1987 – – which is why there is no trend ! PIOMAS is in fact the “improved” Pips, with actual measured Thickness (from ships & shore weathermen) in effect “calibrating” the rule for a year with thicker or thinner Ice. But is basically = PIPS, far from Shore or ships & PIOMAS broke its record of nearly Perfectly matching ICESAT when in 2007 the Center melted. Please note PIOMAS recorded 1300 more than ICESAT. If their Model favored Global Warming, they’d have recorded LESS than ICESAT’s “real” Volume. A recent set of Plane Flights presumably mean this last number – – or more likely the next – – may be Accurate even for the Center. So the Next Number may be VERY different.
–>> Congratulations on the Pips Displacement PLUS thickness Map.

Maybe the NSIDC shouldn’t have corrected anything. All Sea Ice Extents are receding (as well as Sea Ice Areas) globally since Sept 15th.
Strange, though, as I can see a lot more sea ice in Google images of the Arctic than just 1 week ago.
Like the Sea Ice is increasing the real world, but the data input to the graphs is being choked down.
Now, what sort of extra-terrestrial event would do that to the satellites?

Bill Illis says:
September 20, 2010 at 6:28 pm
The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation is reasonably closely correlated with the Arctic sea ice extent going back over 100 years.
===================================
Right on.
And it is simply astounding that the Chicken Littles the “Ice is Melting” crowd never want to talk about the broad-reaching effects of the AMO.
Listening to the balmy breezes strike the windchimes as Igor’s swells move in less than 200 meters away from the edge of a continent, I am reminded of this this early late September “summer” morning, of a very warm, WARM Atlantic.
Must be global warming.
Nah it’s just Nature.
And you can take your ice-melt hand-wringing to the bank on that one.
NOTE: All of you hand-wringing, fear-mongering, OMG the ice is melting the ice is melting paranoids out there:
Come back with an study that covers the lifespan of a human, rather than one that cover’s the lifespan of a rat (i.e. 2002) and we’ll talk.
There is simply NO emergency here.
The Arctic is just doing what it has done for scores and hundreds and thousands and millions of years.
Sheesh.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

don penman says:
September 20, 2010 at 9:28 pm
Thank you for that. I hoped I was not the only one checking the output vs the actual images.

Günther Kirschbaum says:
September 20, 2010 at 10:16 pm
What makes you so certain AGW has nothing to do with it?
========================
Ah…thanks for clarifying. I just quipped “global warming.” I meant “catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.”
The globe has warmed…as it has done for many eons before our ancestors were swinging from trees.
Two separate arguments here [and you never hear this]:
Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Pollution vs. CAGW.
The former, plausible. The latter, complete foolishness.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

Günther Kirschbaum says:
September 20, 2010 at 10:16 pm
If it is normal for the Arctic to change so fast, it must have happened many times before, and thus there should be a lot more clues. But it most probably isn’t normal.
=========================
Who said it was “normal”?
I didn’t.
And for the record, “what is normal??
All of climate and weather history is jagged spikes of “abnormality”.
I went running this morning in a set of hills on the coastal plain where no hills should be.
It is not “normal” for some ancient sea boundary of sand dunes to become forested hills 5,000 years later, but they did.
There is no normal.
We have just been lucky as a species to not be hit by a major asteroid, buried by a supervolcano, or even destroyed by our own inventions, in our short 200,000 year day in the sun on this ancient Earth.
We have risen in our evolution from being tree-swinging brutes, to skyscraper-building geniuses, in such a short time.
Suffice it to say it is because of the generally tranquil state of Mother Earth during that time.
That may not be the case in the future.
But the “normal” that you speak about….when you look against the means of time itself, is FAR from normal.
We have just been lucky.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

AJB says:
September 20, 2010 at 9:10 pm
Preliminary JAXA 15% Extent for 20th = 4,855,156, a gain of 13,593 on yesterday.
Meanwhile sitting here at 322 am eastern time My JAXA site is still stuck on the 19th..How do you get your updates faster?
Also there was a link posted earlier by “steve from rockwood” to an article about the Ice flush which stated at one point that back in 07 the Usual Ice Damming/Jamming of the Nares Strait did not happen which alowed the ice to flow out freely. That clarified my thinking & earlier post I made on the the effects of thin ice on ice Jamming.

My god, 2010 looks like having the 29th highest minimum of Arctic ice… ever on record!
Of course “ever on record” has a slightly different meaning to “ever”. But let’s not quibble over mere words when the earth seems set to freeze over.

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Sep 20, 2010 (IPS) – The carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels have melted the Arctic sea ice to its lowest volume since before the rise of human civilisation, dangerously upsetting the energy balance of the entire planet, climate scientists are reporting.
“The Arctic sea ice has reached its four lowest summer extents (area covered) in the last four years,” said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in the U.S. city of Boulder, Colorado.
The volume – extent and thickness – of ice left in the Arctic likely reached the lowest ever level this month, Serreze told IPS.
“I stand by my previous statements that the Arctic summer sea ice cover is in a death spiral. It’s not going to recover,” he said.
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=52896
================
Serreze is at it again.

Where has RGates gone?

“The volume – extent and thickness – of ice left in the Arctic likely reached the lowest ever level this month, Serreze told IPS. ”
He meant to say lowest satellite-recorded level. But when you’re talking to the MSM, you have to eliminate all that complicated stuff and talk from the gut. So thirty-two years become thirty-two million years, more or less. Same ballpark. It’s about reaching hearts and minds.
There’s certainly been a radical change in the Arctic since 1922. Back then, there wasn’t an activist yachtsman in sight when the ice thinned out. Lousy, superficial flapper-era!

Confirmed JAXA 15% extent for Sept 20th: 4878281. A gain of 36718. Now 64687 above the minimum reached on the 18th.
15-day: http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/1584/15day20100920.png
7-day: http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/9871/7day20100920.png

Year  Minimum  Date
----  -------  ------
2010  4813594  Sep 18 (To Date)
2009  5249844  Sep 13
2008  4707813  Sep 09
2007  4254531  Sep 24
2006  5781719  Sep 14
2005  5315156  Sep 22
2004  5784688  Sep 11
2003  6032031  Sep 18
2002  5646875  Sep 09 (No Data 12-21).

mosomoso says:
September 21, 2010 at 4:27 am
I did a recount. 2010 is only the thirtieth highest ice minimum ever on record.
Still pretty scary though. I mean, that’s EVER on record.
Or you could look for more data.
since 1953-
http://nsidc.org/sotc/images/mean_anomaly_1953-2009.png
100+ years:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2007.jpg

http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_daily.php?ui_year=2010&ui_day=263&ui_set=2
Back to the northern hemisphere…The link Ed Murphy posted showing Hurricane Igor going up into the Canadian Maritimes will turn Igor into a Snowycane & take care of some of that red you see up above hudson bay & then by this weekend you should be able to see the ground white along the coast on the Barrow ice cam so as you can see the Snow extent is getting a great start!

Amino Acids in Meteorites,
He is probably too polite to claim victory over Steven Goddard in the prediction stakes, and he obviously does not need to, as many here are obviously on the verge of declaring him the victor and congratulating him for his insight. 😉

Gandalf The White says:
September 20, 2010 at 10:12 am

Your prediction of 5.75m for 2011 sounds impressive until you realise that it would do no more than put us back to levels earlier this century. The normal minima in the last two decades of the 20th century were over 7.0 million.

I disagree here. One of the biggest mistakes (IMO) that people make when discussing topics such as these is that one year’s value is dependent on the previous year’s (and to a lesser extent, several years before that even). Your claim is that 5.75 wouldn’t be impressive because it’s still well below 7.0 million. I’m claiming the exact opposite – 5.75 million would be ridiculously impressive because it would need the largest single-year growth in the satellite history. I’ll back up this claim with some calcs. Note that I base this on area because I don’t have a 1979-2010 data set on extent (if someone could point me to one, that’d be awesome). Correlating JAXA 2002-2010 extent minima with CT area numbers, I calculate that we’d expect a 4133697 km^2 area to result in an extent of 5.75 million. To accomplish this would require a single-year growth of 1.062 e6 km^2 in area. This is an absurdly high growth. The top 3 single-year area growth values were:
1995-1996 = 827884
1991-1992 = 566394
2008-2009 = 421042
So that kind of change would require a growth in area 234000 km^2 more than the record, and nearly twice as much as the second-largest growth. If that kind of growth doesn’t impress you, nothing will. On the other hand, I’m surprised I haven’t seen more skeptics championing the 2009 area increase considering it was the third-largest single-season increase on record.

Given the accelerating rate of loss each melt season, for your 5.75m to be achieved we will need either an exceptional level of ice formation this winter or an extraordinarily low rate of melt next summer. I doubt you will see either.

I agree with you here. Except not based on the “accelerating rate of loss each melt season”, but on the above numbers. Even reaching 5.5 e6 km^2 extent would require the 3rd largest increase on record.
-Scott

Preliminary JAXA 15% Extent for 21st = 4,901,406 a gain of 23, 125 on yesterday. Now 87, 812 in hand, still looking good!

AJB says:
September 21, 2010 at 8:09 pm

Preliminary JAXA 15% Extent for 21st = 4,901,406 a gain of 23, 125 on yesterday. Now 87, 812 in hand, still looking good!

After today’s preliminary extent, I’ll throw in the towel and say we’ve reached the minimum. I was a holdout on the early Sept apparent minimum, but this one looks to be pretty much in the books. I’m just glad I said the minimum would fall in the 18th-21st timespan before the 18th’s preliminary number was up. However, I did guess 4.79e6 km^2 for the value, so I was low even guessing just a day before the minimum, LOL.
-Scott

Phil. said:
September 21, 2010 at 6:11 am
Really, if those satellites are right it should have been possible to sail the Northeast passage and the Northwest Passage this summer. Guess what 2 yachts are on the verge of completing sailing through both in the same summer, both having passed through the normally treacherous Bellot strait within the last couple of days.
____________________________
Typical, you wait years and years for an Arctic circumnavigation yacht to come along and then two come at once.
Looks like both will do it this year, bravo! Not sure who is likely to win, presumably the trimaran is quicker now they are approaching open water? Also, for a pure circumnavigation they would have to reach the place they started from, so the Norwegians are closer to home.
Andy

PIOMAS changed its big chart back (dated Spt 20) to 8-31 but its little chart still shows the mini-reversal for 9-15.
… also changed the text to suggest Updates every 2 weeks or longer (was: 3 to 5 days).
Small & Big at: http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/images/
Main Page uses small: http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/IceVolume.php

If NSIDC drops just 1 more pixel, it’ll tie 2008. (4.54 to 4.52 million km2, at present). As it’s Graph uses a 5-day average, it should reflect the General Increase & level out and/or Rise, soon, but Spt 21 COULD drop & make NOAA out to be Prophets, not Dumpkopfs …

Scott writes, in response to Gandalf,
“I disagree here. One of the biggest mistakes (IMO) that people make when discussing topics such as these is that one year’s value is dependent on the previous year’s (and to a lesser extent, several years before that even). Your claim is that 5.75 wouldn’t be impressive because it’s still well below 7.0 million. I’m claiming the exact opposite – 5.75 million would be ridiculously impressive because it would need the largest single-year growth in the satellite history.”
The general point makes sense, that a rapid increase toward the last decade’s mean is physically unlikely.
The numbers here don’t work as an argument against Gandalf, though, because Gandalf referred to extent. If extent reached 5.75 in 2011, Gandalf is correct that should not be impressive. It’s well within the bounds of interannual variation around a downward trend.

Gneiss says:
September 22, 2010 at 6:51 am

If extent reached 5.75 in 2011, Gandalf is correct that should not be impressive. It’s well within the bounds of interannual variation around a downward trend.

I don’t have numbers for extent before 2002, when the JAXA record starts. Do you have a link where I can get these numbers? I want some sort of data confirmation to backup your claim that a single-year increase of 936406 km^2 is well within the bounds of interannual variation, where it might be in the 1979-2001 data that I don’t have (thus why I based my argument around area and an extent-to-area correlation).
Currently, the record single-year increase in JAXA is 542031 km^2 (2008-2009), so to beat the current record by a whopping 73% is pretty hard to spin as anything other than impressive. If you have pre-2002 data showing this conclusion to be in error, please provide it.
I completely agree that 5.75 e6 km^2 is more than likely not going to happen. However, I disagree that if it did happen that it wouldn’t be impressive, we’re talking a record level of growth here (again, to the best I can calculate with the data I have access to), and it would exhibit a one-year minimum extent increase of nearly 20%.
-Scott

Smokey says:
September 21, 2010 at 12:39 pm
jakers says:
“And in the 1820s- during the great Arctic warming, they thought it fantastic they could sight the east coast of Greenland, or get to Spitzbergen…”
So major Arctic warming has happened before in pre-SUV, low-CO2 times. Thanx for confirming natural climate variability.
Yeah, so for a short time they could do what is common and surpassed today, in one small area (the Greenland Sea), and that’s the best argument there is that this is just a recurrence of unknowable-cause natural climate variability?

That’s it. The Norwegians and Russians sailed both Passages in one single season. Never before done in the history of humankind (or perhaps tonyb can surprise me). All thanks to you, you and you (and me).
It is, unfortunately, the dramatic changes in Arctic sea ice conditions in recent years that have made this trip possible. On the time of Roald Amundsen it took five to six years to complete the same distance, due to the extremely difficult and demanding ice conditions. Now we have proven that it is possible to make the voyage in a 31-foot fibreglass sailing boat, equipped with a 10 horsepower outboard motor for emergencies. This shows how dramatic and how fast these changes are happening. The changes that we are witnessing will influence climate on a global scale, in addition to the whole range of animal life in the Arctic – especially seals and polar bears, whose lives are dependent on the sea ice.
It is our hope that our voyage will be seen as a strong, visible symbol of the scale and the speed of these changes.
It is a huge milestone for us to have completed both passages, and the second phase of the expedition. However, our journey is not over yet; now we will start on the final leg back home to Oslo, to complete our circumnavigation of the Arctic.
You can congratulate them here.

jakers says:
September 22, 2010 at 11:41 am

The problem here is that the sea ice does not _grow_ to the minimum. It shrinks from a much larger value, attaining and then descending below higher value as it does so.

Okay, so change my word “growth” to “increase”. And the approach your putting forth seems to pretty much throw effects from previous years out the window. Is consideration of multi-year ice worthless then? Sometimes I think it’s over-emphasized, but I think it definitely has merit. I argue that the previous year’s minimum is a more important reference point (and the one I’m using) than the previous winter’s maximum (the one you’re claiming). As evidence of this, I checked the correlation coefficients for 1980-2010 for minima with respect to maxima the previous winter and also with respect to minima the previous year (using CT’s area data). Previous winter maximum’s R^2 = 0.477. Previous year’s minimum = 0.659. Looks like evaluating the increase over the previous year’s minimum is reasonable after all.

Therefore, it would not be so hard for a slower shrinkage to stop at 5.75m.

What normal, natural mechanism do you propose to gain a million km^2 in one year? You must have one since it should be “not so hard”. Why have we not seen this often in the past (can’t use long-term decline excuse here, this is about year-to-year fluctuations)? From what I’ve seen, most anomalous weather events decrease extent, not increase it (I’m not saying clouds and proper winds can’t help the final extent, it’s just that there doesn’t seem to be mechanims to cause severe gains like there are methods for severe loss, such as severe winds pushing ice southward) . I see the year-to-year ice fluctuations being like the speed of average traffic on a highway. If the normal speed is 70 mph, no one is surprised to see it drop one day to 30-40 mph because there are tons of mechanisms for this (a wreck, traffic jam, construction, bad weather, etc), but people would be shocked to see the average speed at 100-110 mph one day. Why? Because there are no reasonable mechanisms.
And no, I don’t believe the long term drop in ice is from short-term weather events. That argument would be a red herring because I’m talking about year-to-year changes, not the long term decline.
-Scott

Günther Kirschbaum says:
September 22, 2010 at 12:35 pm
The Norwegians and Russians sailed both Passages in one single season.
And you don’t think it might have become possible because of GPS and real-time knowledge of the whereabouts of the ice?
Nansen probably hardly knew where he was from one day to the next, let alone where the ice was and how many tenths there were and of what age and thickness.

Preliminary JAXA 15% Extent for 22nd = 4,954,844 a gain of 39, 531 on yesterday. Now 141, 250 in hand, a done deal.

Günther Kirschbaum says:
September 22, 2010 at 12:35 pm
“That’s it. The Norwegians and Russians sailed both Passages in one single season. Never before done in the history of humankind (or perhaps tonyb can surprise me). All thanks to you, you and you (and me).
It is, unfortunately, the dramatic changes in Arctic sea ice conditions in recent years that have made this trip possible. On the time of Roald Amundsen it took five to six years to complete the same distance, due to the extremely difficult and demanding ice conditions. Now we have proven that it is possible to make the voyage in a 31-foot fibreglass sailing boat, equipped with a 10 horsepower outboard motor for emergencies. This shows how dramatic and how fast these changes are happening. The changes that we are witnessing will influence climate on a global scale, in addition to the whole range of animal life in the Arctic – especially seals and polar bears, whose lives are dependent on the sea ice.
It is our hope that our voyage will be seen as a strong, visible symbol of the scale and the speed of these changes.
It is a huge milestone for us to have completed both passages, and the second phase of the expedition. However, our journey is not over yet; now we will start on the final leg back home to Oslo, to complete our circumnavigation of the Arctic.
You can congratulate them here.”
An amazing achievement without the use of modern navigational aids. Ooops wait a moment!! They did have modern naviagtional aids. I wonder if Roald Amundsen would have taken 3 years if he had access to those same aids?
Different achievements, different eras. Both to be admired but hardly relevant to the long term future of the Arctic Ice.

NSIDC also has an interesting graph.

fishnski says:
September 21, 2010 at 3:40 pm
I’m hoping that there will be a correction to this drop…
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_timeseries.png
Too much cold energy left the area to give record cold to South America?
Yes mr. kirschbaum, I had the same question 2 days ago but no response.
The “lobe” everyone was so worried about has surrounding air temps between 12 & 24 degrees & everywhere else is good & cold except a small area poking up towards Svalbard,Norway.. & on the other side from the Bering Strait side of AK poking up due north outwards to about 77 north….all systems Go!!

Ok, last post from yours truly, until SIN #24 (kind of like that acronym for some odd reason).
I predict;
1) NSIDC will update the date of the minimum to the 19th at right around 4.60E6 km^2 (based off of today’s chart).
2) NSIDC will announce (in the early October time frame) the 2010 September monthly median Arctic sea ice extent as being right around 4.80E6 km^2 (based off of several different methods using NSIDC and JAXA data 2002-2010 inclusive).

The freeze-up seems to be occuring apace :
Latest IJIS extent at 5,116,875 km2, up 350,000 km2 from the minimum, just a week ago.
Since 2002, only 2004 has seen a larger gain (360,000 km2) over the same period (18th-25th Sept).